Dean Wilson

Run by Atchafalaya Basinkeeper Dean Wilson , Last Wilderness provides specialized, small-boat tours into some of the Atchafalaya Basin’s most magical places.

This is, in our estimation, one in a listof thirty marvelous places, flavors, events, and experiences that anyone who lives in—or loves—our part of the world should experience at least once in his or her lifetime.

I hadn’t taken one in ten years when Captain Tommy Billiot, at the helm of one of Cajun Pride’s swamp tours out of LaPlace, reminded me what I was missing. There, not half a mile from I-10, Captain Tommy introduced his passengers to the primordial world of alligators and egrets, huge garfish, and little green herons that, mercifully, continues to exist just beyond the curtain of trees. It seemed simultaneously close enough to touch and impossibly removed from our twenty-first century lives. Folks, Louisiana’s exotic, beautiful, teeming wilderness is right there. To be reminded of what makes this place different from everywhere else in America, take a swamp tour.

Cajun Pride Swamp Tours: Sandwiched between lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain, this tour plys the waterways that intersect the low-lying region within just a mile or so of I-10. Friendly, well-informed tours focus on the relationship between the swamp’s wildlife and the people who made their homes here. 110 Frenier Road, LaPlace. (504) 467-0758 or cajunprideswamptours.com.

Last Wilderness: Run by Atchafalaya Basinkeeper , Last Wilderness provides specialized, small-boat tours into some of the Atchafalaya Basin’s most magical places. Wilson works actively to protect the Basin through education, research, and enforcement of environmental laws. lastwildernesstours.com.